I would think it would have to be one of 2 people. The person who reported it or the person who rented the game directly before that. But the thing is you still have to prove which one it was. So that's why people get away with it.

Yeah, the second time the thief tries this, they are instantly fingering themselves. (teehee)

The catch, though, is that it's very easy to get a $25 Visa Card from Wal-Mart, which can be used in conjunction with a free email address to create a new account with a fake name. So this is definitely something that could be done over and over again with no real penalty, the thief making $50 each time. And that's a shame, because RedBox will wind up taking away the feature just because some freaking a*holes can't get a job.

Holograms aren't easy/cheap to reproduce with average printers. With the right security tracking methods it'd be hard to fake an identity.

I'm saying take the purchasers picture or another form of biometric as evidence. Then also put printed holographic content on the disc to ensure product legitimacy. If both measures are taken for both incoming and outgoing products then a better record is kept of the transaction history.

I wouldn't want to rent porno from them but, I don't watch that anyway. So, I assume this would work for most people like me.

@Seraphim with DVDS and GAMES then a digital surface integrity check at exchange would solve that. The problem is hardware kiosk aren't created with every type of criminal abuse in mind. This is why they're so easily exploited.

If done right they won't have to play whack-a-mole with people who exploit these services. It'll just cost more to get but in the end it'll pay for itself.

Proof would be hard. Agreed. I guess the only thing to do would be to flag the user and then if they're always being linked to missing disks then block them from using the service. Then they get another credit card and it goes on in a vicious cycle until all the boxes are empty...

This is why we cant have nice things. Regardless if there's a chance of exploitation people will try to exploit it. This is one of many reasons why game developers and console makers want to put in DRM on video games. Its A whole like these that ruin it for the rest of us.

This happened to me...TWICE...I really wanted to rent Tomb Raider for PS3 and I opened the case and boom, there it was, not even a clean photocopy, but ripped and the only thing in tact was the barcode portion. Called, Redbox said to place it back in the machine and they would decomission the game so nobody else rents it. I checked after and sure enough it was not available. RedBox gave me 3 free rentals. So the next day I travel a few miles out of the way only to have it happen again, but I got three new codes for three rentals.

I work for a video game company (I'm sure you can guess it) and this is becoming a consistent problem. People bringing in games for cash or store credit. We have standard policies in place but without proof we cannot turn someone away until our Loss prevention department gives us the go ahead. It unfortunately takes quite a lot of trades for the system to trigger expected fraud and this has to be driving Red Box crazy. I can only assume they are making more money off of honest people vs those who are scamming. Or they have a nice insurance policy to take their liability away when they incur lost product.

This has been an issue for Redbox for years. This has also happened to my friend multiple times. Rent a movie? No disc. Rent a video game? A sliver of a bar code is left. Then we are out a couple dollars because some jerk stole it and probably sold it to GameStop or The Exchange.

Also, when those people who steal the discs and sell them to those retailers, the workers can't prove anything even with seeing the seal on the disc. Unfortunate thing is that those discs were blatantly stolen whether it's from the customer selling it at the moment or not. Redbox needs to step up and figure out a solution.

S*** really f***ing pisses me off. I have never in my life used a redbox before, until Diablo 3 came out. Really wanted to check it out before I bought it. Went to maybe 6 Redboxs, every single one of the Diablo 3's had been replaced with CDr's. I called and let them know and to get refunded and the only thing they would offer me was promo codes.

What does rap have to do with this? Not all thieves are rappers or "hip hop thugs" Some of the biggest crooks in the world wear suites and have college degrees. I know what you are saying, but there are all kinds of bad people.

It happened to me. I rented the last of Us from there and I got a photo copy of the game. I could not return it because part of the QR and serial code was damaged when the thief returned the game. I called redbox and the CS guy was cool and returned to game manually via the network. They also hooked me up with a few free rental codes.